Watch Matthew McConaughey’s Dazed & Confused Audition

Matthew McConaughey's role as David Woodersonin Dazed and Confused can be identified as one of the parts that truly kickstarted his career back in the 1990s, and now a new video has surfaced online showing off the genesis of that character's creation.

It's been about 22 years since the release of Dazed and Confused, and Matthew McConaughey's career has gone through many ups and downs during that time period, but given his current upswing it's fun to look back at a videotape of what has to be one of the most significant moments in the actor's life. The fates work in mysterious ways, and if he had flubbed his iconic line about high school girls here, it's possible that he wouldn't currently have an Academy Award sitting on his shelf.

Speaking of that particularly memorable line, it would be foolish for me not to compare this audition footage with what Matthew McConaughey wound up actually doing in Dazed on Confused. You'll notice that his personal style takes a step about two decades back, but his delivery is right on:

The Matthew McCouaughey audition tape video was uploaded online by the Criterion Collection, which produces what is truly the definitive home-video version of Dazed and Confused on Blu-ray. While the video description doesn't actually mention it, one may see this as the company doing a bit of celebrating following the big win for Richard Linklater's Boyhood last night at the Golden Globes. Criterion has been a supporter of Linklater's work for years now, and has put out not only Dazed and Confused, but also Linklater's early film Slacker. Additionally, there have been recent talks about a box set for the Before Sunrise/Before Sunset/Before Midnight films, but nothing has been confirmed.

As for Matthew McConaughey, he continued the "Mcconaissance" in a big way in 2014, not only taking home the Academy Award for Dallas Buyers Club, but also earning critical acclaim for his work on HBO's True Detective and in Christopher Nolan's Interstellar. We won't be seeing too much of him in 2015, as his only currently scheduled project this year is the dark Gus Van Sant-directed drama Sea of Trees, but he has stuff cooking for 2016. He will be voicing a character in Laika's Kubo and the Two Strings, and is also attached to star in the true story-based period thriller The Free State of Jones. Let's hope the hot streak continues.